


Kiss Me, Baby, It's Christmas Time

by Shadowolf19



Series: I’m Not Half As Good At Anything As I Am When I’m Doing It Next To You (Earth 616 Series) [5]
Category: Avengers (Comics), Captain America (Comics), Iron Man (Comics), Marvel, Marvel (Comics), Marvel 616, The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types, The Avengers - Ambiguous Fandom
Genre: Avengers Vol. 8 (2018), Canon Compliant, Christmas Eve, Christmas Fluff, Christmas Presents, Dorks in Love, Established Relationship, Fluff, Happy Ending, M/M, Mistletoe, Mutual Pining, Pining, Tony Stark Cuddles
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-01
Updated: 2019-01-01
Packaged: 2019-09-27 08:45:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,126
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17158889
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shadowolf19/pseuds/Shadowolf19
Summary: “Okay, well, merry Christmas…” he wishes to his lab, deciding he’s allowed to feel sorry for himself right now, he’s like a fallen resistance leader or something along those lines who used to be surrounded by people who enjoyed his company, but who now spends his days alone trying to understand when it all went wrong.





	Kiss Me, Baby, It's Christmas Time

**Author's Note:**

  * For [inukagome15](https://archiveofourown.org/users/inukagome15/gifts).



> Written for the 2018 Captain America/Iron Man Holiday Exchange challenge, for the short prompt "Tony and Steve kissing under the mistletoe".
> 
> Contains very mild references/spoilers for the current Avengers run (up to issue #699), but it's mostly innocuous details, like the new Avengers base.
> 
> For my recipient: I really hope you like it! :D

It’s almost six pm on Christmas Eve and although Tony has someplace to be downtown Manhattan (more than one to be fair, but you get the gist), he is still sitting in the kind of garage that has been serving as his lab since the Avengers have found their new location in this cave/mountain upstate New York. He’ll get to the party (part _ies_ ) soon enough, he doubts anyone will notice his absence until _after_ he gets there, when everyone will start wondering where he had been before then. It’s always like this with corporate events, everybody is bored out of their minds until they’re _not_ , and that makes for such a great change that nobody wants to spend a single minute questioning it for fear it could just as easily disappear. Not that it bothers Tony in the slightest, he’s used to it by now and to be fair, people not noticing when he’s not in the attendance gives him some degree of freedom and choice that he wouldn’t otherwise have. Still, he probably should stop and get a move, because even though he could decide not to show up to any of those parties, one thing that he does indeed want is to spend Christmas Day somewhere that is not _here_ , because this place gives him the creeps. It’s perennially dark and cold and FRIDAY is not in the system – the _owners_ told him it would interfere with whatever alien technology is already installed, and basically prohibited him to mess with it – which means he’s officially been talking to himself out loud for the past three months. He figured it’d happen at some point, just not this _soon_.

He sighs deeply to shake himself out of his own thoughts, and after a quick glance at his watch he decides that he’s got to go _now_ if he wants to get there in time, because even though it only takes him forty-five minutes to fly to NYC, the aerial field is bound to be congested as much as the roads are, which means he could still be waiting to be okayed to land by the time the clock strikes midnight. _Thanks but no thanks_.

“Okay, well, merry Christmas…” he wishes to his lab, deciding he’s allowed to feel sorry for himself right now, he’s like a fallen resistance leader or something along those lines who used to be surrounded by people who enjoyed his company, but who now spends his days alone trying to understand where it all went wrong. Except, Tony knows perfectly _what_ went wrong and _when_ , even down to the exact date. It’s been ten years, and still a day doesn’t go by without him thinking about that moment. Nothing has really been the same since then, and it doesn’t help that every single time he tries to make things better, it all ends up backfiring in his face, to the point that now it doesn’t really register as a surprise that most (if not all) of his teammates strongly dislike him. The worst part is, he wouldn’t even care _that much_ if he was one hundred percent sure that he had one person in his corner, just _the_ one.

“Who the hell are you talking to?” comes a familiar voice, and he blinks because it can’t be, can it? His mind must be playing tricks on him for sure. He turns around and of course, the voice wasn’t in his head, it is _real_.

“What are _you_ doing _here_?” he replies, puzzled albeit all too happy to see Steve in front of his very eyes, in his joggers and t-shirt, seemingly appearing out of nowhere.

“Uh-uh, I asked you first.”

Tony takes a deep sigh, looking down: “My lab…” he admits, because he just doesn’t see the point in lying, and besides, he has made the other a promise to not keep things from him ever again, so why would he start now?

“Oh Tony…” Steve shakes his head, but a tiny smile appears on his lips as he gets closer, throwing his arms around the other’s neck, pressing his lips against his forehead in a soft gesture that Tony adores, and was missing deeply.

“Stupid Celestials, I can’t even get FRIDAY installed…” he groans, closing his eyes briefly as leaning in against the other, smiling at how familiar and reassuring this feels. “So, what brings you here? Don’t you have somewhere _better_ to be?”

“I’m right where I want to be…” Steve replies, shaking his head and slipping his index finger under Tony’s chin, gently lifting it up to look into his eyes. “… with _you_.”

Tony can’t believe the words he’s just heard. What sort of Christmas wizardry is this? He returns Steve’s glance, and for a while he stays silent, because he has no idea what to say, nor _how_. This can’t be, can it? Since Steve has accepted to get back on the team, Tony and he have talked, sure, kissed, even had sex, but it has never felt like _before_ , something always lingering in the air – you could tell it’s there but still can’t exactly point down what it is, or how to _deal_ with it. They’ve never slept together in the literal sense of those words, either of them always making up an excuse after sex to leave, and in the morning it was like nothing happened, they were back to be teammates (and maybe friends, although Tony can’t be sure about using that word). He has thought ever so often to bring the subject up, to have a _real talk_ , but in the end he would always chicken out because he’s just too scared of losing that little of Steve he actually gets nowadays, and if that means keeping his mouth shut and pretending everything is _normal_ , then he’s more than willing to do just that.

“I’m sorry, I’m a bit overtired – I don’t even remember when was the last time I actually slept – I don’t think I can get in the mood…” he apologizes eventually, shooting for the easiest sentence he can come up with, adding a half-hearted yawn for good measure. But if Steve gets what he means, he surely doesn’t show it in any way, or he’s settled on not letting Tony off the hook this easily.

“In the mood for _what_?,” he asks, arching a brow in his direction and tilting his head to the side, looking a little like an owl.

“… Sex? Isn’t that what you want?”

“I want _you_ , and not just in that way,” Steve replies, shaking his head and taking a short pause before carrying on, “I can see why you’d say that, admittedly I haven’t been… fully present in the last few months – heck, this whole year, to be honest – but you need to believe me when I say it wasn’t about you. At all. What happened last year, it was hard for me to bounce back from _that_ , which is why I needed to stay away from you and the Avengers and pretty much everything for a while. But in my mind, there has never been a single doubt revolving _you_ , and _us_. Because you see, things are complicated and always will be, we’re superheroes, that’s what our lives are _supposed_ to look like. We can’t change that, but what we _can_ do is accepting the love of someone we feel even more at loss whenever they’re not around us. Who keeps sending us money to make sure we’re okay no matter how far away we are. Who deserves to be loved just as anybody else, even though he thinks he doesn’t – which, by the way, is utter nonsense and _definitely not_ the reasoning of someone whose QI is in the top ten list of people who _ever_ _lived_. Now, _that’s_ someone I will always want by my side, and whom I could never do without.”

“Come on, Steve, I—“

But before he can raise any complains, Steve lifts up a hand to cover his mouth, smiling and shaking his head as if really needed to further underline his point.

“Tony, shut up, will you? I don’t want to hear your non-sense ramblings on Christmas Eve. Which reminds me, I’ve got something for you. Can you close your eyes, please?” But instead of doing that, Steve hears him trying to talk against his hand, so he takes it away, rolling his eyes and cocking a brow: “What is it?”

“I’m sorry, I haven’t gotten you anything, I thought…” he starts, although he doesn’t continue because what he was about to say was something along the lines of ‘we were only having sex’, which, he realizes now, was indeed an idiotic thought to have entertained. After everything they’ve gone through? How can there possibly be sex without even just a strand of feelings attached? Steve is right, he can really be dumb sometimes.

“It’s okay, once you see _my_ gift, you’ll see that you do have one for me after all,” the other replies, a tiny smile on his lips as he nods again: “Your eyes, please.”

And although Tony is plain confused by that answer, he does as he is told, figuring there’s no harm in following that, not when Steve is right in front of him to protect him was something to suddenly explode or a threat to fall off the sky out of nowhere.

Nothing so dramatic happens. Or maybe it _does_ , depending on which way you look at it, because the moment his eyes are shut, Steve smiles gently and takes out a spring of mistletoe from his pocket, lifting it above their heads as he leans in and softly kisses Tony’s lips. It’s a chaste one, so different from all the others they’ve been exchanging on and off during the year, and it sends chills all down his spine, so much so that he instantly searches comfort into Steve’s arms, which promptly engulf him into a strong hug. He’d be lying if he said he hadn’t missed this too.

“I… don’t think I’m following your line of thoughts right now but that was nice…” Tony sighs softly after a few seconds, and even though he doesn’t fully realize this, a smile is flashing all across his face. “Was that it? Can I open my eyes now?”

“You may… and look up when you do, please.”

Tony does, still quite puzzled at this whole scene, and can’t help a quiet snicker from escaping his lips as seeing the mistletoe.

“Really, Steve? Since when are you _this_ soppy?”

“Do you know the story behind the mistletoe, Tony?” the other replies, plainly ignoring him, “I didn’t, until I had this… very interesting conversation with Thor a few days ago. You’d never guess, it actually comes from his family. I won’t spoil it for you – you’ll _have to_ ask him about it, because the way _he_ tells it? Really fascinating – but the bottom line is, a kiss under the mistletoe is magical, and you know what they say about magic, it bounds two people _forever_. But we already knew that, didn’t we? Because no matter what, we keep coming back to each other, and I know if I just said that, you’d dismiss it out of hand, so I thought I’d use some of the magic you’re so scared of to prove my point.”

Tony would like to point out that he’s _not_ , in fact, afraid of magic, it’s just that _it doesn’t make any logical sense_ and that’s what terrifies him, but since Steve is looking at him like that, and he’s still holding his body as tight as he can against his own, Tony decides that he’ll tell him later, whenever that might be, because right now, he has other plans.

“So, um, where are you going with this, Rogers? I’ve got a few parties waiting for me in Manhattan…” he pretends to be serious, knowing that the other is aware of his game anyway, but that doesn’t make it any less fun to play.

“Will you give us another chance, please? Since, you know, we’re bound with magic now and all…”

For a few seconds Tony doesn’t say anything, just stares into his blue eyes, as if trying to spot whether this is for real or not. And although it’s scary to admit, he believes it is, so he slowly nods, leaning his forehead against Steve’s and smiling brightly, and when he talks, his voice betrays him, shaking a little, out of the burst of joy that is now filling his heart.

“Okay, you win…” he whispers on his lips, and the next moment he cups Steve’s face and starts kissing him slowly, to make every second count, because it does.

**Author's Note:**

> I had no idea what to call this fic, when I was in Starbucks and there was [this song](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CiS_cQG3sIo) playing. It was so fitting I knew it had to be it lmao
> 
> You can read more about the tradition of kissing underneath the mistletoe [here](https://wonderopolis.org/wonder/why-do-people-kiss-under-mistletoe). I had no idea that it dated back to Norse mythology before looking it up so that made for a pleasant surprise!
> 
> The new Avengers base is located inside the head of a fallen Celestial and you can find some visual references in the #8 issue of the current Avengers run (or [here](https://readcomicsonline.ru/uploads/manga/avengers-2018/chapters/8/16.jpg) if you want a quick glance).
> 
> I'm now taking commissions! So if you like my style and would like to request a fic, feel free to drop me a dm or buy me a ko-fi [here](https://ko-fi.com/shadowolf19), and I'll get to it asap :)
> 
> Come find me on [Tumblr](http://shadowolf19.tumblr.com) or on [Twitter](https://twitter.com/Shadowolf19) if you want to chat!


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